Tukose Mathla, also known as John Hicks. Hand-colored lithograph from the
McKenney-Hall History of the Indian tribes of North America (1858), after
the 1826 painting by Charles Bird King.

Slave Raiders

The Black Seminoles looked to their Indian allies for aid. In 1826, Chief John Hicks (Tukose Emathla) led a delegation to Washington to protest the slave raids and the renewed efforts by settlers to remove the Seminoles from Florida. Hicks was a pro-white Mikasuki who had been elected chief in an election rigged by U.S. agents. Despite this background, the chief strongly protested the treatment of his people at the hands of the U.S. government. In Washington, "He bluntly stated that the Seminoles wanted the white men to return their slaves." He called for an end to the talk of separate schools for Indians. Finally, in the most eloquent terms, he protested all efforts to separate the Seminoles from the land of their birth.
"Here our navel strings were first cut," said the
chief, "and the blood from them sunk into the earth and
made the country dear to us."